Everyone who uses the internet (including Big Tech companies and their users) already pays telecom companies directly for it. AT&T wants to double dip by having Big Tech pay for user-requested traffic (which, again, users already pay for). Anytime a big telecom company favors what you might hear called a "sender pays" model they actually mean double dipping, and South Korea is facing the consequences of giving in [1]. Internet access in the US is overpriced (with slow speeds to boot) as is [2]. In response to a "sender pays" requirement, Big Tech might raise their service prices to users to recoup the cost, and of course big telecom companies won't lower their internet prices (nor will they stop lobbying against municipal internet [3]). All of the money that AT&T has received from federal government subsidies [4] (and most of the revenue that AT&T gets from users in the course of normal business) should've gone toward fiber a decade ago.
[1] https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/internet-fragmenta...
[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/internet-u-s-compare-glob...
[3] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/how-dark-money-g...
[4] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/states-should-not-skir...